475 Technical Solutions for Reduction of Waste Fuel Specific Emissions Flue Gas t reatment Innovative Technical Solutions for Reduction of Waste Fuel Specific Emissions in Cement Plants

Renato Sarc, Roland Pomberger, Karl E. Lorber

476

Flue 

Gas T

reatment

After adequate and extensive (pre-)treatment of input waste materials in different proces-

sing plants and applying strictly defined quality assurance measures, various non-hazardous 

and/or hazardous waste materials from households, commerce and industry can be used 

as RDF in co-incineration plants (cement industry, among others): sewage sludge, waste 

wood, high calorific fractions from mechanical-physical treatment (MPT) or mechanical-

biological treatment (MBT) plants, calorific fractions of household and commercial wastes, 

shredder light fractions (for example, from old vehicles and waste electric and electronic 

equipment (WEEE), scrap tyres, waste oil and used solvents. In the narrow sense of the 

definition, only solid waste fuels which are prepared from non-hazardous sorted or mixed 

solid wastes exclusively (municipal waste fractions, commercial wastes, production wastes, 

construction and demolition waste, packaging wastes, lightweight fractions from MBT-

plants, among others) including quality assurance measures and intended to be used for 

the purpose of energy generation are defined as solid recovered fuels (SRF). [29]

In total, about 10,510,000 tonnes RDF have been utilized for energy recovery in 

the EU 28 in 2014, corresponding to an average thermal substitution rate (TSR) of  

41 percent, compare Figure 1. [31]At the global level, average TSR is about 16 percent, 

whereby TSR in CKJ (China, Korea and Japan) is 8 percent, in India 3 percent only, 

13 percent in Canada and in the USA 15 percent. [26]

The TSR however vary quite distinctively between individual countries, with the cement 

industry in some countries achieving a TSR of only 7 percent, compared to more than 

75 percent in others. Figure 2 shows the current TSR in all of the analysed countries, along 

with the expected medium-term and long-term outlook, based on expert opinion of local 

representatives. [14]

Austria (not shown in Figure 2) Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, Belgium 

and the UK have achieved TSR well above the EU average. Hungary and France operate 

in the same range of the EU average. Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria, Italy and Greece 

performed more than ten percent point below the EU average. The perceived potential 

for further increase in fuel substitution varies significantly between all of the analysed 

countries. When being asked, the experts of the six best performing states envisioned 

that the TSR in their country can reach 65 percent or higher in the medium-term outlook 

(5 to 10 years), while five more country experts expected their fuel substitution to reach  

40 percent in that period. [14]